


Pirates of the Caribbean Ficlets

by the_dala



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-23
Updated: 2017-05-23
Packaged: 2018-11-04 05:25:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 2,977
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10984272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_dala/pseuds/the_dala
Summary: The sun was sinking low in the sky when they sailed away the first time. Jack stood on the beach, heedless of the tide rising around his ankles, his feet sinking into the sand, the last of the day’s heat beating down on his unprotected head. And he watched as his ship shrank to a speck on the horizon and finally disappeared.A series of ficlets written in February 2005.





	1. Lookout

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published February 18, 2005. This is a collection of drabbles/ficlets written for requests on my LJ.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gibbs/Cotton. PG

One of the few good things Marty attributed to his height was the fact that the damnable bird, safely perched on Cotton's shoulder, wasn't in a position to squawk or peck at him. This advantage proved useless the day he came upon Cotton and Gibbs tucked away into a corner of the hold.

The parrot dove at him, calling out raucously. Marty threw his arm over his eyes, which did the double service of protecting him from carelessly sweeping wings and claws and blocking the sight of his shipmates caught up in a clench.

"Aye? Who's there?" Gibbs wanted to know. Marty backed away and scrambled up the hatch without saying a word. Anamaria would pay dearly for this slice of gossip, and he was soon occupied by thoughts of what price he was going to ask.


	2. Closer to the Vest

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gibbs, Jack gen; G

The day Gibbs was discharged from the Navy, he sold the sweetheart's locket he'd held for seven years and bought passage to Tortuga. He'd heard of the rock though he'd never visited it, and it sounded like the best sort of place for a man to go drowning his sorrows.

A bit maudlin over losing his last memento from Sally, he didn't pay quite so much attention to how quickly he spent the last of the money, and so he was barely conscious to register the three wicked-looking men who started to sidle up to him in the alley. Just as panic began to bleed through the fog of drink, a hand clapped down on his shoulder.

"There y'are, Smithy! I been lookin' for your sorry hide all blasted night!"

Gibbs stared straight ahead at his would-be attackers, who exchanged a glance, apparently decided the odds were not in their favor, and faded into the shadows.

Now he turned to regard his rescuer, who certainly didn't look like a fellow to be reckoned with, despite the blade and pistol at his hip. His face was young and sharp, his eyes were ringed with smoky kohl, and his knotted black hair jingled when he cocked his head.

"You were about t' get yourself into a spot o' trouble there, mate. You new around here?"

"Aye," said Gibbs, sobering up mostly from shock. The man looked like a pirate and smelled like a whorehouse, but he was grinning most disarmingly. "Name's Gibbs -- Joshamee Gibbs."

"Well met, Mr. Gibbs." He extended a be-ringed hand. When Gibbs took it, expecting a weak grip to go with the foppish appearance, he was surprised to find himself held tight and strong. "Captain Jack Sparrow."

That gave Gibbs hope, as he'd not yet had any luck in his search for a crew to join up with. "What be the name o' yer ship, Cap'n?"

Something passed over Sparrow's dark eyes, though his jolly expression never faltered. "Well, that's something of a tale, mate. What say I buy you a drink and we maybe work our way up to th' subject?"


	3. Challenge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dauntless/Black Pearl, G

She wasn't going to stand for this. The impertinent little wench! Flashing sail, plunging through the waves, her men shouting and waving across the distance as if they thought themselves better than a properly painted and turned-out king's vessel. And that captain of theirs - oh, the nerve of that cad, saluting the Commodore from the mizzentop before he scrambled off to the wheel.

The Commodore was better than that, she thought proudly. Her captain was a man of little distinction, but today the Commodore sailed aboard. The Commodore was noble and true. The Commodore would not be baited. The Commodore...

...looked up into the _Dauntless's_ billowing sails, shading his eyes against the sun. Shoulders squaring, he strode to the helm, calling out orders, and politely relieved Captain Martin from his post.

She felt the shift, the new freedom as lines were tugged and yards shifted, so surprised that she barely noticed.

The Commodore frowned, stroking his hand along a spoke of her wheel and glancing at the _Pearl_ up ahead. "Slow to respond," he murmured.

His words stung along every inch of her dignified bulk. _Slow_ , was she? She'd show them all, the proud Commodore and his insolent rival, and most of all that flirty creation frolicking upon the blue sea.


	4. Caught by the Shore

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anamaria gen, PG

Her mama tells her not to play down by the water, but Anamaria doesn't listen. Long as Mama can't see her and the master doesn't know, she figures it doesn't matter. She loves the color of the sea, the way it changes with sun and wind and depth. The surf washes over her toes and she feels clean inside.

Her brother Paul drowns when he's out catching an eel for the mistress's supper and that's when Mama screams, clutches Anamaria's hair in both hands and cries that now she'll understand how the sea takes the ones you love. Anamaria lets her mother's tears soak her skin, but knows she's wrong. The sea didn't take Paul, it set him free -- that's about the only thing she and the stiff-necked white pastor agree on.

And some day soon, she vows, she'll seek her freedom there too. One way or another.


	5. Slake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barbossa/OFC, R for violence

May knew most of the other girls didn't care much for Hector Barbossa, and Scarlett downright hated him, but she was his favorite and he was good to her. Gave her nice things, bought her sweets, sat her on his lap and stroked her hair and called her his pretty little miss. He paid well but didn't treat her like a whore in any other way, so she figured they were all just jealous.

One night he comes to her with his eyes lit up. He tells her tales of such riches as she's never heard, riches he'll be off to seek in the morn. She giggles at his ambition and tumbles him down to stop his wagging tongue.

She doesn't see him again for months. When he does return he's worn and haggard-looking, and his breath smells of rot. Still, she remembers her charming Hector and drapes herself over his shoulder. He pulls her close and buries his nose between her breasts, breathing deep.

"May, darlin'," he says in a crackly voice.

"'Course, love," she says, wiggling her hips. "How'd yer --"

He heaves himself to his feet, dragging her behind him as he heads for the back door. May makes a face at the ache in her shoulder, but she scurries along in his wake. Once they're outside, he turns and pins her to the wall, his hand sliding up her skirt.

"I been waiting fer you, Hector," she whispers, gasping as his fingers fumble between her legs with none of his usual finesse. She pushes her hand down his trousers, surprised to find his cock only half-hard. He's panting with want and striving against her, but to no avail.

"No," he moans into her hair, and she shivers at the despair in his voice. "No, not this, not this too..."

Thinking to placate him, she kisses the fringes of his beard and says, "'S all right, pet, how 'bout we go back to my room an' --"

He interrupts her with a snarl, tearing himself away so suddenly that she stumbles. "Hold yer tongue, ye filthy trollop!"

"But Hector --"

"I said t' shut it!" he roars, and he lashes out, striking her face. May's glad for the wall at her back as she sinks to the ground, holding her hand to her cheek and staring at him. Fists clenched at his sides, he steps forward menacingly. She whimpers in fright, knowing the noise of the tavern inside would mask any sound she might make.

But he doesn't attack her again. Instead he hurls a handful of gold at her and stalks off into the darkness.

Numbly she picks up one of the bright coins. A tear falls upon the gleaming skull, but still it grins up at her, mocking her foolish heart.


	6. Lifetime In Moments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jack gen, PG; warning for character death

The sun was sinking low in the sky when they sailed away the first time. Jack stood on the beach, heedless of the tide rising around his ankles, his feet sinking into the sand, the last of the day’s heat beating down on his unprotected head. And he watched as his ship shrank to a speck on the horizon and finally disappeared.

It was deep night the next time he saw her, moon high and full above the fort’s battlements. Peering out the prison window, he could make out the sea from the sky by its shine, and he could only see the _Pearl_ by virtue of the fact that she did not. With every dull thud from her gun deck, his chest grew tight and his throat grew dry, and he thought, _Now_.

The second time she left him, it was bright afternoon and the island shimmered in the sun, gold and green and blue, prettier than any jewel, prettier even than his young companion. Jack cared not. The sand burned, the waves taunted, the girl shouted. He checked the shot in his pistol and sought the numbing veil of rum buried in the hated earth.

When he stood at her helm for the first time in ten years, he let his soaked clothes dry on his back. He didn’t move for the next eighteen hours. Only when he was directing the ship off course by sagging against the wheel was Gibbs able to persuade him to collapse in a hammock. In his dreams she sang to him, a song like stretched canvas and creaking wood and the deep, lonely cry of whales.

He watched her go down from the deck of an English man-of-war. The captain ordered the other prisoners below, but gripped Jack’s hair at the nape and made him look. He wouldn’t have turned his head even if he could. He owed her that much. As she burned and broke apart, he could hear her screaming defiance, until her bones fell beneath the waves.

_The commodore will be pleased,_ the captain growled into his ear. Jack didn’t bother to contradict him. 

Within an hour of his arrival in Kingston, Norrington came to see him, his green eyes shadowed like a spot of dark, dangerous current. He asked if there was anything Jack could tell him, anything that might be of use.

_Yes,_ said Jack. _I was faithful. But it didn’t save her and it won’t save me._

It hadn’t, and after the briefest of trials, it didn’t.

But Jack could see the ocean from the gallows, and so he smiled, because no one could take that from them. And now no one would get the chance to try.


	7. First Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Norrington gen, G

James was six years old the first time he set foot aboard a proper ship, and he never forgot it. He had been permitted to accompany his father to Spain in order to take care of some property that had belonged to his mother's family. It was the first time since his mother's death a year before that his father had offered to take him anywhere.

He stood proudly on deck, chin lifted, watching the sailors laboring to bring the heavy anchor up. The retort of a pistol from somewhere on the docks below startled him so that he reached for his father's hand. 

Peter Norrington glanced down at his son, a look on his face as if he'd forgotten the boy was there. James' cheeks colored with shame, but his father merely cupped his small fingers in one broad palm.

"Are you frightened of the journey, James?" 

James shook his head emphatically, his heart speeding up with the need to express what he felt -- exhilaration, awe, relief that he was surrounded by men rather than nurses and aunts and tutors and the powdery scent of his baby sister's things. He loved the thick tang of the salt air, the improbable order amidst the hard-looking crew, the kindness of the blue-eyed captain. He was so elated to be standing beside his father, the greatest man he knew, that he feared his feet would leave the deck.

In the end he could find no way to explain all this, so he merely looked up and said, "No, Father, I'm not afraid."

Something in Peter's face changed. Later in his life, James would think back on it and realize that it had been lingering sorrow and guilt, burning away like the fog off the English coast.

"I believe you, son," said Peter. He squeezed James' hand tightly before he let it go. James watched a few gulls chase each other through the rigging, and was quite sure he'd never be so happy again.


	8. Sidhe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gillette/Dauntless, PG13

Night after night, he dreamt of a red-haired woman.

She came upon him in his bed, though it was not really his bed, for everywhere around him he could see green. He was never quite sure if it was the green of moor and meadow or the green of the northern seas. It was assuredly the green of her eyes.

Her hands were strong and capable on his body, and no matter how he thought to resist, could always coax him into response. He did hold firm when she offered him cold red wine and delicate sweets -- his mother's superstitions had taught him better.

When he woke in the morning, a chill washed over him despite the tropical heat; his hands grew clammy and his cheeks pale. The only way to soothe his upset stomach was to open his shutters and look down on the blue bay below, at the ships anchored there. And then he felt right as rain.

He was playing chess with Groves one night when the subject of vessel construction came up, English as opposed to French. Gillette had sailed on French ships as a boy, and he cited the _Dauntless_ as his primary evidence of the superiority of English shipbuilding.

Groves gave him a quizzical look. "But the _Dauntless_ isn't English."

"Of course she is," Gillette retorted. "She was new when Captain Norrington came down here."

Tilting his chair back on two legs in a way he knew Gillette hated, Groves shook his head. "She was, but she comes from an Irish shipyard. It was a whole Irish village built that ship ten years ago."

He supposed he must have blanched, because Groves let the chair drop and looked at him with concern. "Andrew? Are you all right?"

"I am quite well," said Gillette, and he proceeded to lose three games in a row.


	9. The Waiting (Is the Hardest Part)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> James/WIll, PG13

If only Will would stop wriggling, he’d be able to list all the many reasons why this was utterly and completely wrong, beginning with...

“So that’s what the powder tastes like,” said Will curiously, and his tongue flickered out to lap at the skin behind James’s ear.

Perhaps he should work backwards. Completely and utterly wrong, ending with...

Will’s knee nudged his legs apart, rubbing against him, the sensation losing little effect to the layers of cloth between their skin.

“You – you’re married!” he exclaimed, finally hitting upon something relevant. 

“If you can find my wife to prove it,” Will replied, lips grazing his throat, “by all means, be my guest.” He grinned, waving a hand around at the empty smithy. “In fact, you already are.”

He’d thought Gillette had said something about the governor stopping by with an urgent message, wringing his hands and demanding to see the commodore, but he’d needed to pick up this hinge for his door, and he hadn’t been able to keep his feet from setting off in the direction of the blacksmith’s shop. It couldn’t wait. Why couldn’t it wait?

“Wait,” he said faintly. Will’s mouth was hot and open at his pulse point, and he was thrusting in time with the beat of James’s blood.

Will lifted his head, but it was only to look at James squarely, and his hips did not stop their rocking motion. “I have waited far too long for this, James.”

He leaned down and kissed him firmly. James damned it all and pulled Will flush against him, thinking, _So have I, so have I._


	10. Gentleman or Pirate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will Turner gen, PG

It was footwork that was most important, Norrington had said. If you didn't plant your feet where they should be, if you weren't aware of your opponent's steps, your arm would be useless. Will looked down at his feet for a few minutes, studying the frame into which they put his body. His right arm wavered uncertainly, rudimentary blade gripped tight. He frowned when a spot of red bloomed on his dusty shoe, and lifted his head.

His nose had started bleeding again. Mr. Talbot's vicious mare had knocked it with her head when he'd been shoeing her this morning, and though Mr. Brown said it wasn't broken, it had certainly felt that way. 

Laying the sword down on the table, he plucked a handkerchief out of his pocket and covered his leaking nose with it. It was bleeding sluggishly, not gushing as it had earlier, but he hated the wet iron scent in his nostrils. 

As he was sitting down and tipping his head back, Mr. Brown came stumbling through the door. He squinted at Will.

"Don' get blood all o'er th' tools, boy," he mumbled.

"I won't, sir," Will replied, hoping Brown would stagger straight off to bed and leave him to finish the day's work in peace.

But his master came closer, picking up the weapon Will had laid down. Even through the bloody handkerchief, the stench of ale and unwashed flesh assaulted Will's senses.

"You foolin' with this nonsense again?" Brown demanded, leveling the blade at Will. "Sword's a gentleman's weapon, m'boy." His face split in an unkind grin. "Gentleman or pirate, that is."

"I'm no pirate," Will snapped, hot anger flooding through him. It faded into a bitter ache as he looked down at his work-roughened, crimson-stained hands, thinking of Miss Swann's unspoiled white skin. _And I am no gentleman._


End file.
